Female Consulting Detectives?

[earthpigborn]

I don't read a lot of mystery series anymore. I've had my fill with the Hardy boys and Perry Mason when I was young but I still like to grab a book once in a while if the character seems interesting. These days I get most of my mystery fix from TV and I've noticed that while unusual detectives that consult/work with police in the Sherlock Holmes mold show up in TV (Monk, Psych, Mentalist etc) you almost never see female amateur/consulting detectives anymore.

As always when TV fails me I go back to books. Any good female consulting detective series? I've seen and sampled a couple from the cozy mysteries thread but I specifically would like someone in the Sherlock Holmes/Adrian Monk spectrum. Someone weird and maybe a little off-putting.

[alansplace]

Originally Posted by earthpigborn

I don't read a lot of mystery series anymore. I've had my fill with the Hardy boys and Perry Mason when I was young but I still like to grab a book once in a while if the character seems interesting. These days I get most of my mystery fix from TV and I've noticed that while unusual detectives that consult/work with police in the Sherlock Holmes mold show up in TV (Monk, Psych, Mentalist etc) you almost never see female amateur/consulting detectives anymore.

As always when TV fails me I go back to books. Any good female consulting detective series? I've seen and sampled a couple from the cozy mysteries thread but I specifically would like someone in the Sherlock Holmes/Adrian Monk spectrum. Someone weird and maybe a little off-putting.

this series is my favorite:

The Kate Shugak Mysteries by Dana Stabenow

[Nyssa]

Originally Posted by alansplace

this series is my favorite:

The Kate Shugak Mysteries by Dana Stabenow

Thank you for the link!!

[JeremyR]

I'm not sure about a "consulting" detective, but there are probably close to a hundred mystery series nowadays based around on virtually every aspect of modern, er, female life, from shopping (Elaine Viets Josie Marcus series) to scrapbooking to drinking coffee to making donuts/cake/cupcakes/any sort of baked good)

Seriously

Donut = Jessica Beck
Cupcake = Jenn McKinley
Cake = Jacklyn Brandy
Pie = Carol Culver

Yoga = Diana Killian
Ballroom Dancing = Ella Barrick
And I could go on and on and on(I was just reading recommendations off of the Elaine Viets books).

Probably sound a bit sexist, but they do exist (and my mother liked them) .

But something a bit better though, is Carole Nelson Douglas. She started off as a fantasy writer, but moved to doing mysteries. She has a series about a detective cat, but also a series about Irene Addler, from the Sherlock Holmes story A Scandal in Bohemia. That might be what you are after.

http://www.amazon.com/wiki/Carole_Nelson_Douglas/

[ATDrake]

Amateur sleuth cozies tend to be very different in style and tone from professional investigator tales, regardless of the genders involved.

The OP might like to try PD James' Cordelia Gray mysteries. I haven't read the books myself, but moderately liked the British TV miniseries based upon them.

[alansplace]

Originally Posted by Nyssa

Thank you for the link!!

you're welcome , and the beauty of it is the books there are not infected with the dreaded drm.

[CRussel]

It's an excellent series, with the sole exception of #9, which I have put down twice. First as an audio book, and now on my Kindle. I'm just going to have to pass on that one. But overall, I love the Kate Shugak series.

[alansplace]

Originally Posted by CRussel

It's an excellent series, with the sole exception of #9, which I have put down twice. First as an audio book, and now on my Kindle. I'm just going to have to pass on that one. But overall, I love the Kate Shugak series.

haven't gotten that far yet.

[speakingtohe]

Sharon McCone
Enola Holmes
Lydia Chin
Temperance Brennan
Tressa Jayne Turner
Agatha Raisin
V.I. Warshawski
Fremont Jones

[FizzyWater]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

Sharon McCone
Enola Holmes
Lydia Chin
Temperance Brennan
Tressa Jayne Turner
Agatha Raisin
V.I. Warshawski
Fremont Jones

These are CHARACTER names, right? It might be helpful to the OP to include the author's names if you know them.

I know the Temperance Brennan series is by Kathy Reichs.

[earthpigborn]

Thanks for all the recommendations. I think I've come across the Kate Shugak series when I checked wikipedia for books. I dismissed it then because it seemed more like an unusual setting than a unusual detective.

I forgot to mention in the OP that I've read Carol O'Connell's Mallory's oracle. It's probably closer to the type of detective I'm looking for (minus the amateur sleuth part).

The Cordelia Gray stories sounds good. I'll see if they're available somewhere.

[Nyssa]

Originally Posted by FizzyWater

I know the Temperance Brennan series is by Kathy Reichs.

This series is the inspiration behind the TV show Bones. The books and the TV series are as about as different as they can be. the only similarity I found after reading the first few chapters was her name. I might have reacted better to the book if I knew that going in, but at the time I just really couldn't get into the story. I'm hoping to try the series again at a later date.

I'd also like to try the book series which inspired the TV show Rizzoli and Isles.

Anyone here read the series? Do you recommend it, and are they anything like the TV show?

[alansplace]

Originally Posted by Nyssa

This series is the inspiration behind the TV show Bones. The books and the TV series are as about as different as they can be. the only similarity I found after reading the first few chapters was her name. I might have reacted better to the book if I knew that going in, but at the time I just really couldn't get into the story. I'm hoping to try the series again at a later date.

I'd also like to try the book series which inspired the TV show Rizzoli and Isles.

Anyone here read the series? Do you recommend it, and are they anything like the TV show?

read and enjoyed déjà dead. i agree that it's as unlike the bones tv show as the dresden files books are unlike the dresden files tv series.

i guess i should mention james patterson's women's murder club as another possibility for the op.

[Nyssa]

Originally Posted by alansplace

read and enjoyed déjà dead. i agree that it's as unlike the bones tv show as the dresden files books are unlike the dresden files tv series.

I don't think the books an TV show were that different. Yes, the stories were different but that character is the same.The character in Bones and the character in the Temperance Brenan series are two completely different women - and I'm not just talking about looks. In the show: Temperance is a bachelorette brilliant anthropologist with an odd lack of social understandings. In the books shes married or divorced (I can't remember) and a mother, with an icy type exterior.

Originally Posted by alansplace

i guess i should mention james patterson's women's murder club as another possibility for the op.

Ah the Women's Murder Club, another series turned TV show that was not given a fair chance to get off the ground and grow. Also another series in which I'm interested in reading.

[alansplace]

Originally Posted by Nyssa

I don't think the books an TV show were that different. Yes, the stories were different but that character is the same.The character in Bones and the character in the Temperance Brenan series are two completely different women - and I'm not just talking about looks. In the show: Temperance is a bachelorette brilliant anthropologist with an odd lack of social understandings. In the books shes married or divorced (I can't remember) and a mother, with an icy type exterior.

let's take this to the dresden files thread lest we be accused of being